The Eye Of God

This is the Helix Nebula, also called "The Helix," or NGC 7293 in the New General Catalog. It appears in the constellation Aquarius and resides 700 light-years from Earth, which means that if you were to point a really powerful flashlight at it and hit the switch, it would take 255,000 days for that light to get there. That's thirty-six-thousand four-hundred weeks. Seven hundred years.

But the most impressive thing about it isn't its distance from us. The Helix is one stunning example of what's called a planetary nebula, the massive cloud of ionized gas that three-billion-year-old stars become in their last throes, after the red giant stage, and before settling as a remnant star - a white dwarf - for eternity.

Why's it called a "planetary nebula," if it was in fact once a massive star? Because when we first discovered them, these things looked like large gas planets, like Jupiter. What do you expect? Hundreds of years ago, all we had were itty-bitty ground-based optics. Today, with telescopes like the Hubble orbiting in space, there's no mistaking it.

But I love that it has kept the name - it's a planetary nebula. Like so many other terms in astronomy, it bespeaks the mystery, romance and mythology so deeply embedded in this outlandish search for gigantic objective truths. The stars are infinite, and perfect. We are only human.

Through the odd workings of the Internet, the Helix Nebula has gained a reputation as something else: the Eye of God. That's silly, I thought at first. But look at it again. I did, and it gave me chills.

+ Click here for more ridiculous pictures of galaxies, nebulae, and globular clusters.

A Long Time Coming

This country has just realized a whole lot of its potential, and everyone knows it. Let's revel in it, just a little longer.

/ a change is gonna come /

/ cheer /  Celebration at Fort Greene
Senior Action Center, Brooklyn, Jan. 20, 2009.

/ weep /  Vertie Hodge, 74, in Houston on Jan. 20, 2009,
after Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address.

/ rejoice /  US Army Command
Sgt. Maj. Julia Kelley watches the inauguration
from Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq.

+ photos from The Boston Globe
+ "A Change Is Gonna Come," performed by Seal

The Inauguration

It happened. And after two and a half months, it's still hard to believe.

361 Days To Go

The new year has begun, and everyone's doing it, so I will too. My resolutions for 2009:

1. Per last year's utterly failed resolution: Read at least a book a month. I'm a slow reader. Plus, the last 12 months have been ridiculous for election fans, so I grant myself amnesty for 2008. But this year, I have no excuse. (Wait, aren't Obama's First 100 Days beginning soon?)

2. Call my family more. It's easy to lose track of mom, dad, and siblings when I don't see them - I'll never not be family, so what's the harm in losing touch for days or weeks at a time? Well, the harm is this: I miss their lives. And, while I'm at it, call my grandmother too. Not only does she miss us bad out there in California, I'd give my pidgin Chinese a workout too. ;)

3. Give. When I first graduated and started pulling in paychecks, I gave a bit of money here and there. March of Dimes, St. Jude's. But now, no longer. This year, find something worthy to give to. And volunteer.

4. Become a solid 5.0 tennis player. I've been hovering at around a 4.5 NTRP rating for much of the last decade or so. It's time to bump it up to an indisputable 5.0. Get match tough; and regain that confidence I had with on-the-rise shots that I had in 2003, back when I used my 95-square-inch Prince Precision Equipe frames (since bequeathed to my father).

5. Acknowledge when I understand something, and acknowledge when I don't. Otherwise, I just make a fool of myself, and in the process fool myself into thinking I'm smarter than I am.

Happy New Year!

+ photo from blr60 @ flickr +